A method and an apparatus for placing tablets into pockets of thermoformed bottom foil are known from U.S. Pat. No. 6,311,462 B2. The tablets are produced by pressing them in a tablet press in a quick way. A great numbers of tablets reach an upwardly declined slide. In the following, the tablets located in their flat position are received on a conveying belt. Side walls having a special design are arranged above the conveying belt to store the tablets. Storing of the tablets also serves to distribute the tablets in a direction transverse to the working direction in front of a line forming element in which the tablets are arranged as lines of tablets, meaning such that the tablets are arranged one after the other in a line in a way that two adjacent flat tablets only contact one another at one location of their edges. For this purpose, the line forming element includes channels in which the lines of tablets are stored. The exit of the line forming element is closed by a stop bar such that the tablets are stored in the line forming element. A transfer unit includes sucking elements. The transfer unit is lowered from above the lines of tablets (which are located in the line forming element) such that the foremost tablets which are retained by the stop bar are received in their flat position by sucking, and they are moved in the direction of the bottom foil and separately placed into a pocket located in the bottom foil. The sucking elements of the transfer unit also engage damaged tablets in case these are comparatively big. Smaller pieces of tablets cannot be received by the sucking elements. Thus, not only undamaged tablets, but also damaged tablets are placed into the pockets located in the bottom foil, and there are empty pockets containing no tablet at all. The stop bar is designed to be moved in an upward direction such that dust and smaller broken tablet pieces located in the line forming element can be removed. As soon as new tablets in the line forming element have followed, the stop bar has to be relocated into its effective position. It is also possible to manually open the stop bar to commonly remove tablet pieces and undamaged tablets as trash for a controllable period of time, and to thus clean portions of the line forming element. It is to be understood that the working velocities of the separate stations are coordinated in a way that there are as few as possible empty pockets.
A drawback of the known method and apparatus is the fact that the stress acting upon the tablets on their from the tablet press into the pockets of the bottom foil is comparatively great such that there is a respectively great proportion of broken pieces and dust, especially when processing tablets which are comparatively soft. Broken pieces and dust result in operation failures which have to be remedied, one the one hand, and in incorrect packages including pockets containing partly broken tablets and/or no tablets. This operation cannot be prevented although sucking off units are arranged at different locations, the sucking off units serving to suck off tablet dust and smaller broken tablet pieces.